Courtyard House: Starting as a mediocre engineer

You may often hear this statement: China's industry is large but not strong, and lacks innovation capabilities.

This is just liberal arts students studying journalism talking nonsense.

Those idiots in the STEM fields, they'd piss in the wind if they went out, each of them harboring a mad scientist within them.

If you don't believe me, you can just throw a moped or a three-wheeled vehicle at their face.

This has created a world-unique market with a value of hundreds of billions. Are you still blind?

To be honest, the thought of the electric bike made Zhuang Zhongchen quite excited. Since transmigrating, he'd been lying around doing nothing for almost a year, so bored he was practically growing mushrooms. Now that he finally had the chance, he was ready to show off his skills!

Putting everything else aside for now, let's draft an application report first. We'll use the pretext of performing official duties. Using an official vehicle for official business is perfectly reasonable, right?

Surprisingly, the superiors were very agreeable and approved the 800 yuan procurement budget directly. The only requirement was a tricycle, capable of carrying both people and goods during official business trips. That seems reasonable, doesn't it?

Alright! The little donkey has suddenly become a three-wheeled vehicle? It seems to have deviated from my original idea, but one must know how to be flexible; something is better than nothing.

Here, some might find that this seems to violate financial regulations. Shouldn't the logistics department handle all external procurement? Why would the money be given directly to the person in charge?

This is actually a special situation brought about by a special era. And don't forget—there are still bicycle tickets!

Because the higher-ups didn't have bicycle tickets, they told Zhuang Zhongchen to find a solution himself. If he could find a way, the labor bureau would get a tricycle quota for free; if he couldn't, the 800 yuan would be refunded to the finance department. The company wouldn't suffer any loss.

For enterprises and institutions, this fixed asset indicator is quite important.

Increasing quotas is extremely difficult; it requires approval from the finance bureau. Generally, those accounting officials won't even give a second thought.

However, exchanging old items for new ones is particularly easy; you can pick up a new one at the Finance Bureau anytime with just the scrapping certificate.

This is completely different from individual purchases. Ordinary people need a bicycle ticket to buy a bicycle. But for enterprises and institutions, once they obtain a quota, they are essentially indefinitely employed.

That's why the superiors were so accommodating. This is different from their later work logic. Because the performance targets were paramount, a mere 800 yuan? They basically didn't care.

That said, buying a bicycle for 800 yuan? That's quite difficult. As mentioned before, domestic bicycle production only truly began in the early 60s, just in recent years. You can imagine how low the output was. Not to mention tricycles.

So here's the question—what should we have done before? Why are there still so many bicycles on the streets?

A small portion were indeed imported, including well-known British brands like the Phoenix, as well as German, American, and Soviet-made bicycles, among others, including many bicycles left over from the Japanese. However, during the years of the Great Depression, all of the Japanese bicycles were smashed to pieces, while the other imported bicycles were largely undamaged.

However, foreign exchange reserves were limited, so the number of imported complete bicycles was relatively small. Most were haphazardly assembled bikes using imported parts. Before and after the founding of the People's Republic of China, there were hundreds of bicycle shops in Beijing alone that offered bicycle assembly services.

Good heavens! Hundreds of them? The history of counterfeiting is long and rich!

Interestingly, many bizarre modified versions have also emerged. The most famous one should probably be the backwards-riding donkey, which is very popular in northern regions.

In fact, this is exactly what Zhuang Zhongchen wants; he needs a modular bicycle. He can't redesign it; the main components will be made from bicycle parts.

The first place we found was the neighborhood service center. This was a production team formed after the public-private partnership, bringing together all the individual business owners. Undoubtedly, there were individual business owners repairing bicycles.

The term "solo operator" was later changed to "individual business owner." Therefore, their business methods were quite flexible, and their approaches were rather unconventional.

Of course, after the public-private partnership, people generally wouldn't dare to do the whole vehicle assembly business anymore. After all, many spare parts weren't from legitimate sources. Why risk your life for a street service center job with a fixed salary?

However, with the connections in the neighborhood, things became much easier, and they quickly gathered enough parts for a tricycle...

Next, I went to a hardware store to buy other spare parts for the powertrain.

Beijing is one of the largest industrial centers in northern China, and it boasts the most complete selection of standard hardware. If many surrounding areas experience shortages, they will make a special trip to Beijing to purchase them.

Purchasing is also quite convenient; the government publishes a product catalog. If the item is in stock, you can buy it on the spot; if not, you can order it from a hardware store…

Then comes the non-standard parts. That's even simpler. There are two skilled craftsmen in the courtyard; they can just hand-make them for you…

The most crucial component was undoubtedly the two-stroke engine. Finding no suitable model in the product catalog, Zhuang Zhongchen decided to design one himself.

For the employees of the Labor Bureau, which factory in Beijing didn't they have connections with? Even if they didn't, they certainly wouldn't dare to offend them.

So, following the blueprints, using the factory's machines and workers to manufacture a few small gadgets was just a small favor.

Therefore, not long after, the factory manufactured two two-stroke engines, and sent an extra one as a spare...

More than half a month later, the street repair shop.

"Xiao Zhuang, since things are already like this, let's not waste it, shall we? Besides the tricycle you mentioned, I'll go get a set of bicycle parts and install one of those mopeds you mentioned?"

"Will there be any problems? I only have a budget of 800 yuan."

"Don't worry! I guarantee we won't exceed the budget. Didn't you say most of your parts were free? Including these two engines?"

"Okay then! Thank you for your hard work."

"No big deal. I find this thing quite strange. Can it really run?"

"It should be fine. Even if I can't work, I can still ride it as a tricycle."

"Okay! The tricycle is almost fully assembled. Take it back and try it out, see if there's anything you don't like."

"..."

Pushing his tricycle, Zhuang Zhongchen returned to Nanluoguxiang, immediately attracting everyone's attention.

In the end, even the people in the courtyard came to watch.

"Chenzi, is this a tricycle? What's on the frame?"

"It must be an engine! This is called a motorized tricycle, or simply a motorized vehicle. When they are lined up, they are called a high-speed train set." Zhuang Zhongchen was in a good mood and he joked.

"You're just bragging! A bullet train, my foot! Let us ride it around already."

"Don't move yet, I haven't test-driven it."

"Then you'd better try it already!"